There are many reasons to use email marketing, including, but certainly not limited to, staying in touch with your existing customers on a monthly basis, announcing a special event you have coming up promoting a specific product line, and introducing a new item.
When it comes to cost, email campaigns are extremely cost effective and typically have a great return when used regularly and in conjunction with other mediums. In addition, it is a quick way to boost sales quickly by offering a special price for email recipients.
Features of Email:
Benefits of Email:
Maybe it’s not all about the mailing list but consider this: if your piece is well thought out, beautifully designed, and carefully written but mailed to the wrong audience—what have you gained?
Targeting your list properly is crucial to your direct mail campaign success. Be sure you carefully consider who should receive your message.
Where do your potential customers live? What is their age, gender, business, income? What are their hobbies? Do they have children? What else do you know about those potential customers that could help you better target who receives your direct mail message?
Get the right list and you’ll reach the right customers! Let Kessler Creative help you compile the right list. Contact us today for more information on how the right mailing list can enhance your marketing efforts!
Return to TopWe all get them: mailings to that stranger in our home named "Sir" or "Current Resident." People are rarely impressed by such vague greetings. How much better it would be to personalize the mailing by addressing it to the specific recipient.
Variable Data technology allows you to do just that. Your mailings can have one or several Variable Data fields, allowing you to immediately capture the attention of your prospective customer.
Contact us today. Let Kessler Creative help you determine how Variable Data technology can make your direct mail recipients sit up and take notice!
Return to TopWith direct mail, you have only six to eight seconds (yes seconds!) to grab your reader’s attention.
Your design must get the reader to take notice quickly. Is it relevant, colorful, and creative? Does it project your image and product properly? Will it move the recipient to read the offer? Good design isn’t enough. Meaningful design is essential, too! The Kessler Creative design team can take your nugget of a concept and transfer it into a visual message.
Your text should convey your offer, product, or idea briefly and concisely. Review your message from the readers’ standpoint. It has to be relevant. Will he think it’s written directly to him? Does it target her specific needs or wants? Let them know how your offer will benefit them. Make it clear—they have to get it the first time. Check carefully for spelling and grammatical errors.
Don’t forget to let the reader know exactly what you expect them to do: Call now! Order today! Impart a sense of urgency!
Let Kessler Creative help you pass the 8-second test! Contact us today to see how we can help with your design-print-mail needs.
Return to TopWhen you are considering a direct mail campaign, consider what works. Does your offer require a quick response? Can you relay the benefit in a brief, concise format? Can you effectively target your audience? You’ll want "yes" answers to these questions before embarking on a direct mail campaign.
Talk your idea over now with the Kessler Creative team. Contact us today to see if direct mail is the right choice for you and your customers.
Return to TopIf you run really fast you’ll end up out of breath, but that’s all you’ll know. You won’t know how fast you ran. You certainly won’t know if you ran faster than you did the last time. You won’t know whether your new running shoes positively impacted your performance. To know those things you’d have to time or "track" yourself.
It’s the same with your direct mail. You must track your response rate and sales against the cost of the mailing. Once you do that, you’ll begin to see what works best for you: what audience, what offer, what timeframe, and more. Then you can tweak future campaigns for even more success and profitability!
The method you choose for tracking is up to you—it doesn’t have to be complicated, but for the good of your marketing campaign it has to be done.
Return to TopCan you remember the jingle to Oscar Meyer, or what a Coca-Cola can looks like? Do you ever wonder why that is? Simply put, Branding. It is repetitive information blasted out frequently that keeps certain brands on your mind. It is not a one time occurrence, or frequently changing product appearance.
How can a small company have that same affect? There are several key components to an effective marketing campaign that can help a small to mid-size company reach market awareness.
First, do you know who your customer is? Every product has a specific target audience. If you know who that is, you are way ahead of the game. If not, Kessler Creative can help you discover who that is.
Second, how can you effectively reach that customer in a simplistic but direct approach? Direct Mail is the most effective way to reach thousands of customers quickly. By offering an incentive for them to contact you, you save time and money.
Third, can I send one blast out and see what happens? Yes, but this is really not recommended. Effective Marketing begins with keeping your name out in front of your prospects and current customers. By doing this, you become the company on their mind for your product, and your product is what they think of.
At Kessler Creative, we can work with you to find the most direct approach to reach your client base. From designing a direct mail piece that will capture attention through delivering into the hands of your ideal customer, our team is ready to assist you in growing your business.
Return to TopThis is a tough question especially in tough times. We all know that everyone’s budget has been cut and every business is preparing for what seems to be the stormiest of times that the business world has seen for many decades. So the question is: How do I as a small business owner withstand the stormy seas ahead?
At first glance, you may slash your marketing budget. Why would you continue to market your product and spend dollars you desperately need to pay monthly bills? But, I highly urge you to reconsider. Marketing is an investment into the future of your company.
Guerrilla Marketing founder, Jay Conrad Levinson, says "Marketing is not an event, but a process . . . It has a beginning, a middle, but never an end, for it is a process. You improve it, perfect it, change it, even pause it. But you never stop it completely." A process is defined as series of actions or operations marked by gradual changes that lead toward a particular result. If we are to take the advice of a marketing professional, we would never end our process of marketing. We would define and redefine the series of actions, continue to make changes, improving upon our current process, and work on perfecting the process.
How can you change your process to get more for your money? The 2 big parts of the process are Who and What. Who is your target audience. Who you send to needs to be the right who, and needs to be a reachable who. What is the piece your sending with the message. The message is the part that needs to updated, fresh, and audience worthy.
At times like these, your target audience needs you know more than ever. They need to remember your there, they need to remember you provide a great service at a reasonable price all the time, and they need a little incentive at times like this.
Call Kessler Creative today to learn how we can help you feel your company is built to last.
By reading this sentence, you have proven the point I'm about to make. Direct mail postcards with numbers in the headline get people's attention!
The method behind this direct mail headline is simple:
First, pick a goal or a benefit -- increasing performance, saving time or money, improving health, etc. Make sure the benefit matches your target audience. Then tell the reader how to accomplish this goal in X number of steps (or give them X number of ways to achieve the same goal).
Here are seven things you can do to maximize your success with this direct mail strategy:
Numbers catch the eye better in numerical form (7), as opposed to written form (seven).
With everything else being equal, odd numbers have been shown to outperform even numbers. Odd numbers appear more scientific and legitimate. That's why Listerine kills 99% of germs instead of 100%.
Keep your headline straightforward and simple. The reader should understand your message (and the benefits behind it) right from the get-go. She should not have to read the headline twice or puzzle over its meaning.
Strong words conjure up strong emotions. Boring words yield boring results -- drop them from your direct mail vocabulary. Instead of telling readers how to "increase the safety of their computer systems," tell them how to "safeguard their data and shield their servers."
To increase the motivating power of your numbered headline, simply increase the reward promised by the headline. For example, instead of "7 Ways to Decrease Your Debt," you might say "7 Ways to Eliminate Your Debt." Only one word has changed, but now the promise of value is much greater. "Decrease" is vague. "Eliminate" is absolute.
If your direct mail postcard mentions "21 Ways to Increase Your Web Marketing Success," you better follow up with (you guessed it) 21 ways to improve the reader's web marketing. At the very least, offer a summary or excerpt of those tips and then point to a full report that offers the rest. Be sure there's a product behind the promise.
Stay away from "bait and switch" headlines that don't deliver on the promise. Trickery and deceit will get you nowhere.
Develop a formula when creating your postcard headlines. This will help you ask all the right questions and shape a headline around the answers to those questions.
Example formula:
Now let's imagine we're a financial services company using this headline formula for a direct mail postcard. It might go something like this:
You can see how the formula builds the headline. It also helps us identify the heart of our message and the audience it's intended to reach.
Headlines can make or break a direct mail postcard. So don't settle for your first attempt. Even professional copywriters rarely hit the mark on the first try.
Personally, I'll write at least a dozen versions of a direct mail headline. Then I'll eliminate half of them (the weaker half) right off the bat. Then I'll put them aside for a day or so, and when I review them again I'll pick what I think is the best one.
The best offer and most stunning postcard design will get you nowhere without the right mailing list.
If you were selling lawn mowers, you wouldn’t want to waste your money mailing postcards to people who live in apartments in New York City, right?
First, define your target audience as specifically as possible. Who is the target audience? Where do they live? What do they do? What do they buy? Why would they buy from you?
Once you have that figured out, the rest is easy...
There are several types of lists available to you, and at first, you might be overwhewlmed. Rest assured, a professional direct mail company, like Kessler Creative, will help you locate the perfect list to fit your needs and your budget.
When you want to target a specific segment of the market based on who you have defined as your target market. Examples of “selects” include: age group, income level, occupation, children present in home, etc.
When you want to mail to every household and cover an entire geographical area (and take advantage of bulk mailing rates). Consumer names cannot be output on this list, mail would be addressed to "Resident/Occupant."
When you need to sell to other busniesses. Examples of “selects” include: type of busniess, sales volume, names of individuals, number of employees, etc.
Real Estate, Subscribers, Students, Churches, Affluent Homes, etc.
List composed of people who have recently purchased a similar product, subscribed to a similar service or entered a sweepstakes. This is a list of people who have certain spending habits or a history of responding to offers.
List based on demographic data like specific zipcodes. This type of list is compiled from public records: postal records, government records, telephone directories, county recorder offices, and credit bureaus.
This type of list consists of people who have requested info on a service or product or have an active interest in a particular service or commodity.
Resident/Occupant lists are the cheapest and the way to go when you just need to splash your message to get a response. This type of list works well for restaurants mailing coupons.
Hit your target market dead-on, and pay a little more with list selects. The more specifically targeted your list, the better your response rate. Pricing is dependent on the selects you choose and the saturation and quantity you choose.
Example: If you’re selling lawn mowers, you could select home owners in suburb zipcodes, with a certain income level.
There are many variables to consider when purchasing a list. If you are unsure of what lists best fits your needs, call one of our team today and they will assist you in determining how to reach your future customers.
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